Former Sheriff Carona seeks to trim prison term in half

SANTA ANA – Former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, who is serving a 66-month federal prison sentence for witness tampering, is asking a judge to reduce his sentence to less than half.

His attorneys say in court documents that the original term was incorrect and needs to be recalculated in light of new law. If the judge agrees, Carona could be out early next year.

"Carona seeks relief on the ground that the court erred in determining his sentence by using honest services fraud as the 'underlying offense' under United States sentencing guidelines," the attorneys argue in urging U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford to set aside the sentence he handed down in April 2009.

Federal prosecutors expect to submit their response in January to Carona's new motion, filed Nov. 6, which seeks to have him resentenced in the 24- to-30-month range. "However, we don't believe there's any merit to their argument," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Sagel, the lead prosecutor on the case.

If his current sentence holds, under federal law, Carona has to serve at least 85 percent of his term, which means he will likely not be eligible for release until late 2015. If Guilford grants Carona's motion – likely to be heard early next year – he could be eligible for release immediately.

Carona, 57, was Orange County's top law-enforcement officer for nine years before he was indicted in October 2007 on six felony corruption counts, including theft of honest services of an elected official, conspiracy and tampering with a witness.

In January 2009, a federal jury in Guildford's court found Carona not guilty of five counts, but convicted him of witness tampering. He was convicted of trying to persuade a former top aide – Don Haidl – to lie for him during a federal investigation of corruption in the Sheriff's Department.

After an appellate court upheld his conviction in January 2011, Carona surrendered at a federal prison in Colorado and began serving his sentence.

George Jaramillo, former assistant sheriff and onetime Carona confidant, was convicted on corruption charges in both state and federal courts.

Jaramillo pleaded guilty in 2007 to tax evasion and mail fraud, and agreed to cooperate in the government's probe of the Sheriff's Department. He also admitted devising and executing a scheme to defraud the citizens of Orange County and the state of his honest services as a public official, according to his plea agreement.

Guilford sentenced Jaramillo in 2009 to 27 months in federal prison. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011 reversed his conviction on one of two guilty pleas. The reversal stemmed from a change in federal law that limited the scope of honest services fraud to bribery and kickback schemes. Jaramillo pleaded guilty to honest services fraud that did not specify bribery as an underlying crime.